Spindrift, page 9
On the misty morning ebb-tide of June 3, 1668, the Eaglet and Nonsuch were piloted out of the river by Isaac Manychurch for a fee of £5. By evening they had reached the open sea and turned north in a fresh breeze; ten days later they rounded the Orkneys and headed due west towards the New World. Four hundred leagues off Ireland, they were struck by a storm that nearly broached the low-waisted Eaglet, forcing her to turn back.
Six weeks later, Gillam sighted the coast of Labrador and turned north, navigating the Nonsuch skilfully under clouds of seabirds over the “furious overfall” into Hudson Strait. The tiny ketch sailed past the Belchers and found refuge in the same river mouth where Henry Hudson had wintered more than half a century before. It was promptly named Rupert River, after the expedition’s Royal sponsor …
The return of the fur-loaded little ketch caused minimal stir; its cargo, bartered for goods originally purchased for £650, brought in £1,379 on the London fur market, and the ship was resold for £152. Wages of £535 plus the required startup investments, customs duties, the damage to the Eaglet and other expenses had failed to make the voyage profitable. But the backers were pleased. The thesis that Radisson and Groseilliers had been expounding for more than a decade had been proved correct: it was entirely practicable to sail into Hudson Bay, winter on its shores and return with a profitable cargo of fur.
—from Company of Adventurers, Volume I (1985)
The Ships of Saint John
Bliss Carman (1861–1929)
Situated on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River, Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada. Before the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s made it possible to navigate the river year round, Saint John served as the winter port for Montreal. Until the early twenty-first century, it was the site of Canada’s largest shipyard.
Where are the ships I used to know,
That came to port on the Fundy tide
Half a century ago,
In beauty and stately pride?
In they would come past the beacon light,
With the sun on gleaming sail and spar,
Folding their wings like birds in flight
From countries strange and far.
Schooner and brig and barkentine,
I watched them slow as the sails were furled,
And wondered what cities they must have seen
On the other side of the world.
Frenchman and Britisher and Dane,
Yankee, Spaniard and Portugee,
And many a home ship back again
With her stories of the sea.
Calm and victorious, at rest
From the relentless, rough sea-play,
The wild duck on the river’s breast
Was not more sure than they.
The creatures of a passing race,
The dark spruce forests made them strong,
The sea’s lore gave them magic grace,
The great winds taught them song.
And God endowed them each with life—
His blessing on the craftsman’s skill—
To meet the blind unreasoned strife
And dare the risk of ill.
Not mere insensate wood and paint
Obedient to the helm’s command,
But often restive as a saint
Beneath the Heavenly hand.
All the beauty and mystery
Of life were there, adventure bold,
Youth, and the glamour of the sea
And all its sorrows old.
And many a time I saw them go
Out on the flood at morning brave,
As the little tugs had them in tow,
And the sunlight danced on the wave.
There all day long you could hear the sound
Of the caulking iron, the ship’s bronze bell,
And the clank of the capstan going round
As the great tides rose and fell.
The sailors’ songs, the Captain’s shout,
The boatswain’s whistle piping shrill,
And the roar as the anchor chain runs out,—
I often hear them still.
I can see them still, the sun on their gear,
The shining streak as the hulls careen,
And the flag at the peak unfurling,—clear
As a picture on a screen.
The fog still hangs on the long tide-rips,
The gulls go wavering to and fro,
But where are all the beautiful ships
I knew so long ago?
—from Later Poems (1921)
Schooner Magic
Lou Boudreau (1951– )
Chester, home of generations of mariners, is often touted as one of the most picturesque towns on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. After an adventurous life under sail, a retired mariner remains spellbound by the haunting presence of vessels of an earlier age.
The calm waters of Mahone Bay stretch away to the southeast and a gentle southwesterly breeze blows from over the land. Although the air is still cold, the last of the winter ice has gone and there is the promise of spring in the air. There is a sense of the ocean here. From the granite rocks of Pennant Point to tiny Ironbound Island, this is seafarer country. For so young a country much has gone before. We are now and have always been a sea people, born to a legacy of great schooners … even those of us who claim to be landsmen have an uncle, grandfather, or distant cousin who went to sea from some Nova Scotia port. We were famous schoonermen in days gone by, and when people talked of us the words were spoken with respect. Fine schooners were born on this coast, and our heritage is just as surely steeped in the salty Atlantic as it is rooted in the soil of this land.
I often walk the Chester waterfront in the early mornings, to ponder and take in the beauty. It’s a special time for me because I usually have it all to myself, the sea, the sky, the peace, and the magic. They are all mine for those precious dawn moments and I savour the thought of it.
Sometimes I sit on the old wooden bench on the dock facing the sea and after making sure there is no one watching I peer intently into the mist, searching for the ghost I know is there. I can hear the quiet surge of the ocean on the stones at the water’s edge and the cries of the gulls. The first whispers of a morning breeze brush my face and I can smell the salt of the ocean. And then my early morning daydream takes me further to the southeast, past the tree-covered islands into the great Atlantic.
There, an ethereal apparition from another time fades in and out of the fog, a lithe and lovely Atlantic siren, come once again to stir the hearts of mortal men. She’s the spectre of a tall schooner, silently bound on some mission from a distant land. Tall of spar and long of hull she heels gently, as with canvas taut she reaps the wind. Close-hauled with topsails sheeted tight, the set of her sails is as perfect as her sheerline. The curve of her quarter is as fair as a woman’s hip and her stem lovely to behold. Homeward bound, the faint scent of pine forest drifts across her bow, and she knows that she is close. Born here, near the shores of the bay, the thought of seeing her place of birth stirs her spirit. She has voyaged far and although older now, she lifts her bows with the sauciness of a young girl, throwing the spray to leeward.
A smile comes to my lips; could I possibly be hearing the sounds of a schooner at sea? I strain to listen as the breeze plays tricks on my ears. The creak of wooden blocks and the snap of manila rope come and fade. I can almost hear the faint chants and commands crossing her deck as her crew haul on halyard and sheet.
“Together now, again, and again.”
Tilting my head slightly I catch the faint whispers of the skipper and mate. “Full and by, make fast.”
The image becomes clearer as she closes the land and my schooner comes on under full canvas, leaving a white frothy wake astern, and the graceful curve of her bow wave as it rolls away to leeward makes an angry hiss.
There is the perpetual fog bank off the coast, which she must navigate before making landfall, but there is a familiarity; she knows the rocks and coves and harbours. The first of the sun’s rays break the hills to the west and the Nova Scotia schooner glides into the bay. Rounding the point she comes ghosting towards me and even as her fisherman comes gently folding down, her topsails are clewed up. Her catted anchor is unlashed and her sails come down from forward. She glides near to the dock, and I am startled as I hear the command “let go.” It takes me a moment to realize that I have voiced the words myself. The chain rattles silently out and the schooner comes to a gentle stop. She has come home and my daydream ends. As I walk back to my house I notice that I have been out for an hour; it is now 7:00 a.m. and the neighbours are stirring.
I’ve only lived here three years now but in some ways I’ve been here forever. Born in Baddeck in 1951, I was but a child when my father sailed us away from these shores in a Shelburne-built schooner called the Dubloon. What followed was a voyage lasting some thirty-five years. I sailed to South America, Africa, the Mediterranean, and every island between the US mainland and Venezuela. I sailed the oceans and saw the wonders of the world, but despite all this there was always a feeling that I didn’t belong, I was always a foreigner, a stranger in strange and often inhospitable lands.
It’s different now, the courses I lay are no longer on charts but along the peaceful streets of Chester and the storms I weather are of another nature. I have experienced a wonderful feeling that is new to me, that of belonging. The life of wandering is not a bad or wasteful one but a man needs a home and country. Like the weary schooner that finally returns, I too have come home.
And there is this other secret thing that I have found here, it is not mine alone and so I must share it with you. There is schooner magic all along this coast, and it is free for the taking. The bays and coves are filled with it as are the granite headlands and the rocky shores. It is there for you and I and anyone who would have it. Good for body and soul, this is how to find it. Go quietly at the earliest hint of dawn to the place where you can see and smell the Atlantic. Close your eyes for a moment and face the east and it will come to you.
—reprinted with permission of Capt. Lou Boudreau (2002)
SS Beaver
Norman R. Hacking (1912–1997)
Famous ships develop characters and spawn mythologies. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s SS Beaver was one of these. Two months after her launch on the Thames on 2 May 1835, the 100-foot vessel built of oak and elm made her way under sail and steam to Victoria via Cape Horn and intermediary stops. The voyage from England to her Canadian station took 225 days. She was the first steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest, linking isolated communities for trade and commerce, and sometimes aiding the civil power for constabulary duties. In order to honour her prominent role in West Coast history, The Maritime Museum of British Columbia established in 2012 the S.S. Beaver Medal. Presented annually, the prestigious medal recognizes the achievements of individuals who have made outstanding contributions to maritime endeavours in British Columbia.
On the night of July 26, 1888, an old-fashioned, untidy little paddle steamer slowly backed out from the City Wharf in Vancouver Harbour, and churned her way towards the First Narrows and the Gulf of Georgia. She was the Beaver, bound for Thurlow Island with logging supplies.
Members of her crew had imbibed a little too freely in waterfront saloons before embarking, and neither seamanship nor discipline was at its best. There was a slight summer mist on the water (later claimed to be a dense fog), and visibility in the Narrows was defective.
Currents were crafty and unreliable, and Captain George Marchant lost control of the vessel. With a barely perceptible grating sound, the little steamer ran high and dry on the beach at what is now called Prospect Point.
The crew were little disturbed by the mishap and stayed aboard for the night. Next morning they rowed back to Vancouver, leaving behind the staunch mortal remains of the first steamboat on the north Pacific coast.
The Beaver was fifty-three years old. Her market value for trading purposes was small. Her owner, Henry Saunders of Victoria, had no use for relics or antiques. And since salvage might cost as much as the ship was worth, her fine old oaken timbers were left to disintegrate on the beach, while vandals and curio hunters stripped her of copper sheathings and every movable object. For several years she remained a familiar sight at the entrance of Vancouver Harbour, becoming progressively more forlorn.
The hull was still more or less intact in 1892, but two years later there remained little more than the ribs to show the former hull, and a steam chest high on the end of a protruding pipe.
It seemed fitting that the Beaver should end her days in Vancouver Harbour, a city newly born, which marked the beginning of a new age of progress in British Columbia.
The Beaver had known old Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in the days when the word of Dr. John McLoughlin was law on the coast. She had carried James Douglas and Sir George Simpson on tours of inspection to the northern fur posts, and had entertained on her deck the Russian governor of Alaska at Sitka.
She had aided in the development of coal on Vancouver Island, and had seen the growth of Victoria from a wilderness to a capital city. She had been present at the proclamation of the colony of British Columbia, and had carried gold seekers to the Fraser River mines.
She had surveyed much of the BC coastline on behalf of the Admiralty, and she had seen the coming of the first transcontinental railway. She had lived her life to the full, and gave up her proud spirit with the arrival of a new age.
—from The Princess Story: A Century and a Half of West Coast Shipping (1974)
The Sinking of RMS Nascopie
Peter Pitseolak (1902–1973)
Like the ketch Nonsuch that first sailed into Hudson Bay in the years 1668–1669, the 2,500-ton Royal Mail Ship Nascopie was one of the most historic and celebrated ships of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Over 285 feet in length, the steamer-icebreaker Nascopie was designed and built in Wallsend on Tyne in 1911, and named for First Nations people of Quebec and Labrador. Between 1912 and 1947 she made thirty-four voyages into the Canadian Arctic. Toward the end of summer 1947 she struck an uncharted reef at the entrance to Cape Dorset harbour (Baffin Island), where she remained stranded for over two months. On 25 September she broke in half during a storm. Oral tradition among the Inuit has it that when the ship died that September, the old way of life in the North died with it. In the vernacular of that same oral tradition the Inuit story-teller and photographer Peter Pitseolak extols her place in the history of the North.
It was sad; that ship helped the Eskimo people. What it carried helped the people before we had the government. When it sank, we were really sorry.
When the Nascopie came there was always a lot to eat. The old cook used to feed the Eskimo people.
When the ship arrived we went on and worked for two or three days. Today everyone seems to hate the ships, but then we loved them. The Nascopie used to bring all the supplies for the store; if we hadn’t had the Nascopie there would have been no supplies. As soon as the ship arrived we ate. We ate outside; there was no other place. Those who couldn’t work would cook on the shore. They were also paid. The cook fed us. His name was Storekeeper; they used to call out, “Storekeeper!” Ahalona! He gave everything … corn beef, stew … everything. That cook loved to feed the Eskimo people.
In 1946 the old cook was replaced by another. The new cook did not feed the Eskimos. The Eskimo people felt unwanted. With the new cook, the Nascopie was changed. There seemed to be nothing to eat on board! I was the only one who could get food. The new cook invited me—but not the others.
The next year there was a new captain also and with the new captain the ship was lost. The Bay manager had radioed the ship’s captain that I should go down and meet the ship to pilot it into Cape Dorset. The captain said no. He thought he knew everything. If I had steered the ship, it would never have gone aground. I had been steering the ship for three or four years. The new captain did not want me to meet the ship …
That night, when the tides had risen and the ship had let loose its grip on the rocks, someone sent for me to come and help. Earlier that day my help had been refused; now, when it was too late, I was wanted.
On our way out to the ship we met a big barge full of kadluna [non-Inuit] heading for shore. It was full only of white men and they told us the ship had a big hole. I was the only person who heard this said—my companions missed it because of the noise of the motor. I told the kadluna in my boat that there was a hole in the Nascopie. Our boss, the Bay manager, did not want to go to the ship after I told him about the big hole. So I told him, “We must go; there are still people there—they are flashing lights because they want our help.” …
Of all the ships, the Nascopie was the most appreciated by the Eskimo people. The Nascopie’s old cook used to feed the Eskimos, and the Nascopie helped the Eskimo people by taking them along where they wanted to go. We were sorry when she sank. She carried many things to buy that were useful and helped us very much. Since the Nascopie sank, the ships that come are not so much appreciated. When the Nascopie could be seen in the distance, many people were happy.
